Monster Hunter Import Playtest

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We try out Capcom's Online monster hunting game.

By Anoop Gantayat

Capcom has quietly pushed itself to the forefront of Online PS2 gaming. Following Online playable titles like Z Gundam and Resident Evil Outbreak, the latest Japanese release from the company is Monster Hunter, a third-person Online/Offline action game about, as the title suggests, hunting monsters.

You play as a newbie monster hunter some time in the future. Hunting monsters is of course no longer necessary, but it's something people like to do for sport and livelihood. And so you and others like you (to the tune of over 100,000, judging from first week sales of the game in Japan) gather at a base town to head out on the hunt.

The game takes the form of a series of quests assigned to you by the village head. The quests take place in the surrounding mountains, jungles, grass plains, river beds, deserts and caverns, making for some major variety as you attempt to prove your hunting worth. You start off with access to one major area, consisting of a few small mountain, jungle and grass regions strung together. Clear the initial set of quests and the game opens up more trying jungle, desert and sub-zero cavern areas.

Quests range from basic hunting tests to more fearsome trials that put you up against flesh-hungry monsters. Your goal can be anything from collecting meat and plants to killing a specified creature, all the way to collecting the egg of a giant pterodactyl-like creature and bringing it back to base (hopefully without drawing the attention of its fire-breathing mom). Some quests even ask that you collect raw meat by slaughtering creatures, then roast it using your portable roasting set. This merely involves a timely button press when the color of the meat changes, but the wacky music playing in the background makes for a fun diversion.

Hunting 101 No matter what the quest, you always have to keep a few things on your mind besides the goal. First up, your body. Your character has meters for both energy and stamina. Energy goes down as you are attacked by monsters and can be replenished by eating herbs. Stamina depletes in two ways, eventually eating into your energy. As time progresses, your stamina slowly decreases, indicating your character's hunger. You'll have to relieve your hunger by eating rations or cooked meat. The stamina meter also decreases when you perform a trying move, like dodging an attack or running. In this case, the meter fills back up on its own; you just have to make sure and not push yourself so hard that the meter falls to zero at any given point.

You also have to deal with the surrounding environments. In desert areas, this means not staying in the sun too long, as doing so drains your energy (unless you've downed a cold beverage in advance, of course). Mountain areas are only marginally affected by elevation. Your character doesn't get injured when falling from heights, but if she happens to be carrying a giant pterodactyl egg in her hand at the time, it will break.

Your biggest environmental threat is in the form of the very monsters you're out to hunt. Depending on the difficulty of your current quest, a stage will be populated with opponent creatures who'd just as well turn you into a pre-dinner snack. You have to choose when to fight back or when to run; make the wrong choice, and you could end up being surrounding by a pack of raptor-like creatures, each taking turns picking at you. Usually, you can take safe haven by moving between areas of the stage; only the larger flying creatures will follow you.